my hair always caught
on the beaded wooden
seat cover on the passenger
side, knees up, feet on the
dashboard, modest mouse
telling me to Float On,
back from the beach
                          back from home                  (both)
back from half price
from mcdonalds,
from fred meyer
                                92nd street park             (in the end)
will you go back
and look at what
i etched on the bench?
it was a doodle, but
it meant I  l o v e  y o u

on the trip back home
we stood in front of the
air pump at the gas station
in awe of all it's simple metal
and the fact that we had no idea
how to use it, but a man came along
in ***** slacks and a beaten bike, asked
if we needed help and I noticed how his teeth
appeared to be solidified together like one giant
tooth on each row. And I wouldn't have thought
about the ***** man with two giant teeth ever
again if my mom hadn't have pointed out
that he might have been god. and maybe
so, maybe not. Maybe he was just the
***** man on the bike but what if
he was god and what if I had
missed the monumental
moment to ask him all
of my questions, lay
all of my fears out
on the coffee stained
pavement. But we
hadn't and we had
left, drove 13 hours
to St. George, Utah
without a second
thought.

i want to tell him
something about
how he was a monumental
loss, but I'm too afraid of the
ways in which he moves, afraid
of the ways he blinks and talks
of all the truths that are no longer
i could be moving forward but I'm
stuck on him, and bits of dream
cling to the walls of my consciousness
I'd say this is a matter of letting go,
but this is a matter of cutting ties
but which ties, which cords, which
wires, red or blue? Red or Blue?
red or blue?

i could describe
the sensation as
wringing, but in
truth, the motion
is more like milking.
Sometimes in the morning
there are hands in my chest
and instead of milking, they
wring to the tune of old peony
lotion and your face in disassembled
machine parts, brief instances that belong
nowhere (but existed once) and maybe I
fabricate you but the hands keep reaching
and wringing, cording me through the loops
in their fingers, unforgiving in their job.

i notice that I sign
every diary entry
and hold my legs
in bed, like every
page is a letter
and every leg
is a hand.

I  s t i l l  b l a m e  m y s e l f.
a n d  w e  c o u l d  a r g u e
t h e  d y n a m i c s  o f  h a t e
a n d  w h a t  c o n s t i t u t e s
a s  h a t i n g  b u t  w h y
b o t h e r  w h e n  y o u
w i l l  never  s a y  m y
n a m e  w i t h  a
p o s i t i v e
c o n n o t a t i o n.

you have always been
fringed in gold, always
back lit, probably born
with a silver lining, never
having been a cloud but
you effortlessly drifted
into my life, and out
and out, and out
and
out

but i am just kid
trying to be too old
for someone to whom
I am just skin, a mouth
on two legs, he cracks
***** jokes and I
realize I don't
have to like
them

it took everything

to not call you in Albuquerque, let
you know I'm here, just know I was
there just know I was driving the roads
breathing the same air, that this was the
closest we'd been since april of last year, that
you could see me, that you could see me but
I was too afraid of you not wanting to see me
too afraid of the commas you wouldn't use
the perpetual boredom sounding through
your replies, the I don't want anything to
do with you and I told brett that you
were probably one of those people
who never speaks to an ex once
you're done and I was both
surprised and hurt by my
lack of knowledge by the
sheer amount of things
that i didn't know
about you but
you never ask
these things
because they
never
matter



not until later.

california has a spirit
that makes you want
to sleep with motorcyclists
whose arms are rich browns
the air smells like warm lime
and the palms look like kisses
I could be giving. It's all very cliche,
but california has a spirit and it makes
you want to  sleep with motorcyclists
whose arms
are rich browns
with salt n' pepper hair
they would probably
know how to love you
maybe.

it rained on the drive
home and brett fell
asleep early on beneath
the hum of sigur ros
and I realized my
thighs were warm
and I was living and
breathing and you
should want me
you should want
me because I am
warm and living and
breathing.

how easily I fell onto
that bench outside, a
simple lets just wait
a few minutes that
turned into 30, she
fish tailed my hair
and we laughed
but inside I could
hear your voice
seven years, a
few states, a
few girls,
I feel like
such a
child
for
falling
for



you.

I feel like
a lady bug
in a bull's
stead, yes
that's the
way you
make me
feel.

that omnipresent camera settles on
my hand, glowing in the dim light
the deep brown shadows shift in the
moving car, polygon animals that creep
back and forth in steady patterns, and
you pan up my arm, don't meet my face
shift to my legs, a soft lavender in the evening
and off in the distance thunderheads sleepily
roll across the hills and slivers of light
jet out across little cabins like little jewels
embedded in the pastures, out my window
you focus in on my moving lips, some song
on the radio you'll never remember, just the
chorus you'll never place, but my lips moving
in the fading sunlight, but my lips moving in
the fading sunlight, but my lips moving in the
fading
sunlight.

i tried to fit into
that kettle corn
bag he held in
his hand, to no
avail, if he liked
pork buns I would
be a fruit ****.

took a sip of
Pabst Blue Ribbon on the river,
kept time with his strokes and
stared at his neck an hour down
the Arkansas, even through the
rapids where his shoulder blades
kept me in check, where his goosebumps
rose and fell in the hail

Coaster
Wallflower
table doily


me.

i had this dream
where he called and said
he didn't know if he was
mad or why he was mad
but he laughed and asked
how I was and the clouds
were hot air balloons and
birds tossed red ropes from
the  sky so that we could fly
with them. So I knew---that
even if this were a dream, it
was all fictional. Not because
birds couldn't toss ropes from
the sky but because I know
you'd never call me.

i sent you a text saying that we should take a break before you moved to new mexico the first time because I didn't know how to truly let you go (I still don't) and I didn't want to lose you completely because while I felt I was falling out of love, you were still my best friend, a rock, a safe place.  And I'm sorry it took so long to admit, that yes, i was falling out of love, but only the love we built around our youth, a haven for seventeen year olds that had roofs but wanted their own made of leaves and blankets, cologne and sweat. Yes, I fell out of love with adolescence but I still

love

you.

how could I
have lost myself
when you were
the one covering
everything up?

kids by mgmt on your
summer playlist, I remind
you of two (three?) summers ago, a
season with no year because
it's lost in the chaos of me trying
to hide your hickeys from kaitlin
all the so-called oldies, back when
we first had cars, had no jobs and
listlessly sweated the lyrics to all
the pretty girls by fun.

in dreams people end up in
places, shrink down to sizes
aren't faces but bodies, aren't
lips, just statues, no legs, thick
torsos, you settle for old faces
call them out from behind doorways
make love to them in hallways
but they disintegrate beneath
your hands and you spend
the time waking up trying
to fall back, the lights
go off in your dream and the
people there fall asleep, you
probably saw satan once
and said he didn't belong
there, your prayers weren't
audible but drowned out his
voice, you said no, you aren't
allowed to be there, this is sullied
ground, this is hallowed ground
this is

sacred ground

we are children riddled
with holes that we hasten
to fill, but it's okay to have
ditches, to have pits, caverns
pinholes, dots.

in the same way you
told me that no one
would ever love me
as much as you, no
one will ever tape
pink and red streamers
to your ceiling and wait
three hours for you to
come home






(not in the way I did, at least)

before you came here and before I came here


he must have sat us down, two children, or two souls
two lights or two bodies and we looked down at winding
roads and our mothers or fathers and he probably said a lot
of things or a few, but in it he must have said we would meet
and part and we probably just smiled and said okay just


okay.

cody said;
*to be completely honest, you
seem guarded at the idea of letting
a guy get close to you again. It's not
a bad thing at all, it's just once you do
let a guy in for real you're going to be
ridiculously committed to him

It's 10:36 Pm.




I had a dream two days ago and if it were a photo
it'd be a snapshot of browned notebook paper, all
the things I've ever written about you beside a vase
of flowers

You came out of an anger so deep and hugged me, I
said
i k n o w  t h i s  i s  j u s t  a  d r e a m but I miss you
and I felt my nose brush the bottom of your earlobe
you held me by the shoulders and told me you didn't
know.

I hope she has my hair
I hope she has my hair
that when her curls fall
across your face you hear
my voice, my sigh, a laugh
that when her curls fall
across your face you hear
my voice, my sigh, a laugh

but it doesn't last long.

I've pried every finger
from the tail-end of your
shirt, but my eyes are the
only thing left. To be sure,
hands aren't the only thing
that can grip, that can hold on.

if you've ever done
3 sets of lat pulldowns
your hands cramp up
by the end and are freckled
red. You flex them awkwardly,
all ten fingers bent into little
claws around the bar, and the
skin feels tight as if you were
slipping your bones into a glove
too small.

but it doesn't last long.

I sometimes wonder
if the reason I can't
love myself is because
I only loved myself through
your eyes and you never saw
a single flaw.

The ice in her latte melts
slowly and I chew the rhubarb
pie thoughtfully, wondering if I
care for a response. Nothing good
has really happened to them since I
started there, I say, stealing a sip.

I'd say you bring out the worst in
people, she replies, and I glance up from the bowl,

She smiles and takes the cold cup back.

*I mean to say that you draw the poison out.

filled with salt
my cuticles sting
my lungs compressed
between tatami mats
and I slosh in bed,
back and forth in
a warm, viscous mud
my skin tingles with
dewy sweat.

I glow
without
you.

I'll stop loving
you if you ask
me to.

Happy Thanksgiving,
and that's when you
started losing grammar
as if you had no time to
use punctuation for me,
I wasn't worth the finality
of a period or a comma.

In this dream I
couldn't get my
running shoes on
and I could see you
driving away, I chased
you through the alderwood
mall parking lot and got lost
in the brush trail that doesn't
exist, knew that if I took this
shortcut, my dream would lose
you so I aimlessly searched
between the cars, pulling
shoulders belonging to
blank faces, the sun
was setting and it
was getting dark
I woke up in the
light and wondered
why I'm still looking
for
you
chris.

it's been a year
since I saw you
last.

he went south
I'm a little bit
north, keeping
my head above
a sea of mexico
and texas.

i don't
want
you
the
way
you
are.

on the county road
123, horizontal to my
window pane, it runs
along the dry grass
and some teenage
boy rolls down it
his bass a hushed
thump in the night
he's the bump in the
night, and his taillights
leave red streaks in the
black.

up here the wind blows with fists
never felt it this heavy, so heavy
the car tips and I jostle in my seat
sounds like thick palms slamming
against the windows and I look out
towards the mountains where a line
of thin grey cloud settles across the hills.
we are in a valley and the wind hurls
itself down the crests and heaves into
the middle of town with it's fat belly,
rushing in plumes up my skirt and
lifting my hair in tendrils, all tendrils
always tendrils.

it blows me away.

the wife at the
house over, you
can hear her laugh
over her baby radishes
and the sound of water
on wet soil, soft talking
two stories up, i hear her
and she tells her husband
look, look what we have
look, look what we have.
look, look what we have.
I want to be as happy
as she is
someday

for once I choose
to dip us (then) in
honey, steep us in
jasmine, I am not
sugar-coating, just
preserving, just for
once forgetting that
bad happens, that
good can stay if you
let
it.

the flint
and the
fire, all
together

"well if he's god he
already knows my
tricks, and I'm always
playing tricks, I can't
ask for something without
and ulterior motive, so I don't
ask at all.

I didn't bother with it anymore"

at one point he
told me he was
born to love me
never having heard

that song by secondhand serenade

I don't know the
truth about most
things anymore.

born runner

born runner

born runner